Voice over IP (VoIP) and access to emergency services: a comparison between the United States and the United Kingdom

Regulatory experts tend to think of the United States as the bastion of market-based laissez-faire telecommunications economics and regulation, and conversely to think of European regulators as being notably more willing to intervene in markets. Recent regulatory rulings relating to access to emergency services via voice over IP (VoIP) show the United States to be surprisingly interventionist and the United Kingdom, by contrast, to be far more liberal and temperate. The elements of similarity and of difference between these U.S. and U.K. policies are presented in this paper